1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a data receiving system for receiving data through a communication network and a data output method therefor, a data receiving apparatus, and a control program for implementing the data output method.
2. Description of the Related Art
Facsimile terminals capable of reading characters or graphics printed in an original, as image information, and sending the image information to a specific destination terminal have been widely used in offices and homes. A conventional facsimile terminal has a transmitter/receiver section and a printer integrated with the transmitter/receiver section. A sender enters a fax number of a transmission destination in the facsimile terminal to thereby send image information to a facsimile terminal on a receiving end, and the receiving-end facsimile terminal outputs the received image information by a printer incorporated therein.
In general, a facsimile terminal of the above-mentioned type is shared by a plurality of users in an office or the like. For this reason, whenever facsimile reception occurs, it is required to check which of the facsimile users the received facsimile is addressed to. To avoid this troublesome operation, there has conventionally been proposed a technique of outputting a facsimile receipt notification to a telephone of a recipient as a destination for a received facsimile upon receipt of the facsimile (e.g. in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publications (Kokai) No. H06-225062 (Japanese Patent No. 2732766) and No. 2000-201267).
In Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. H06-225062 (Japanese Patent No. 2732766), telephone numbers of respective provisional senders are each stored in advance in a manner associated with a user code for a facsimile terminal. When a facsimile is received, the telephone number of the sender is detected, and it is determined whether or not there is a match between the detected telephone number of the sender and any one of the stored telephone numbers of the provisional senders. Then, if the detected telephone number matches a provisional sender's telephone number, a voice notification message is output to a user associated with the provisional sender's telephone number through a speaker, a private branch telephone system, or a personal computer terminal.
Further, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2000-201267 discloses a facsimile apparatus provided with a telephone number table storing recipients' individual numbers in association with telephone numbers. According to this apparatus, a recipient's individual number is extracted from a DTMF signal received when receiving a facsimile, and a telephone number associated with the extracted recipient's individual number is acquired from the telephone number table. Then, a receipt notification by voice to the effect that the facsimile has been received is transmitted to a telephone associated with the acquired telephone number.
However, the above described conventional techniques suffer from the following problems:
(1) Even when a recipient receives a receipt notification upon receipt of a facsimile, the recipient cannot always output a received copy from a nearest facsimile terminal. For example, assuming that the reallocation of personnel within an office shifts a facsimile user to a place far away from a facsimile terminal always used by the facsimile user so far, the facsimile terminal prints out a received copy as ever, so that he/she has to go to the facsimile terminal remote from him so as to receive the printed copy. In such cases, in order for a facsimile user to obtain a printed copy from a nearest facsimile terminal, it is necessary to notify all possible senders including business partners of a facsimile number of the nearest facsimile terminal whenever he/she is shifted to a new place.
(2) When a receiving terminal is a multi-function peripheral having not only the facsimile function, but also other functions including the printer function and the copier function, a facsimile can arrive during execution of a job not by the facsimile function, but by another function, such as the printer function or the copier function. In this case, a user using the multi-function peripheral as a facsimile terminal cannot obtain a received copy until the current job is completed.
(3) In the case where a sender is not informed of the recording/printout capabilities of a destination terminal, if the sender sends data with a high resolution containing a large amount of information to the terminal at the receiving end, the data might be converted into low-resolution data, due to the recording/printout capabilities of the receiving-end terminal, to reduce the information amount of the data, which causes degradation of the quality of recording/printout.